Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was very interested to hear the Taoiseach set out the six WHO criteria for the management of the crisis. I want to go through each in turn to assess how we are doing. First and foremost, on the critical issue of social isolation my sense is that we have done well as a country. We have shown that a western democratic system, without some of the strict controls seen in other countries, is, by and large able, to self-regulate. The Garda has done a good job but people have largely self-regulated. As shown by the figures from the chief medical officer, CMO, and others, this self-regulation is working. It is bringing the rate of reproduction of the virus right down. It is a great commendation of the Irish people that we have shown that capability. We should not ignore that.

I was talking to a colleague, Deputy Stephen Matthews, this morning about PPE. He was telling me anecdotally about a sail-making company. Its business collapsed because there were no orders with the downturn. It has managed to turn that round and started to produce gowns at scale, using some materials it got which were not being used in another industry. It was adaptive and quick. As much as there is still a pressure point with PPE in our nursing homes, with what the State did to organise those 300 Aer Lingus flights I think an assessment comparing us with other countries would show we are also doing well in that regard.

On the positive side, I recall at the start of this process that I talked directly to people involved in intensive care units in hospitals around the country. They had a sense of terror because they saw what had happened in Spain when the health system was overrun. That was a daunting prospect. While the workers in the front line there have had a really difficult time, any assessment would show that we were quick and flexible in scaling up our ICU and other hospital capacity, and that we have avoided that overrun of the system, which was the fundamental fear. Great credit is due to the HSE and people in our hospital system for that flexibility. Even if some of it is now seen as overcapacity, we have that contingency, with minimal numbers in Citywest so far, thank God. We have contracted many private hospitals and, as Deputy Micheál Martin says, we are underutilising the beds now, but we did not have to build emergency field hospitals. We did it in our flexible way and we did it well, by and large. In those three of the six categories, I think one would have to say that the State has reacted quickly and well.

With regard to how vulnerable groups are protected, on "Prime Time" the other night, a professor from UCD made the point that our nursing home system was not able to adapt as quickly as we saw our hospital system adapt to the changed circumstances. A tragedy has unfolded there, as has happened in other countries, since we are not unique. It is not only for the patients but also the workers, who have a high relative incidence of infection, as I understand from discussions with Dr. Tony Holohan yesterday. If there are lessons to be learned and changes need to be made here and now, it is the need for us to look at our nursing home systems and how they can adapt now and for any potential future waves of this pandemic. It is not just our nursing homes, and is happening with some people in direct provision or elsewhere, such as the examples Deputy Micheál Martin mentioned, including meat factories, where we were not able to make the changes that we were able to make in our hospital system. That is something that we have to address now and also learn lessons about for the future.

With regard to testing, the fifth of the six categories that the Taoiseach set out, we started by making the correct strategic decision, unlike the UK, as one example, in that we did not abandon community testing. We were willing to try to keep up testing even as the wave of the virus hit. It is clear that we have not succeeded in delivering what we promised. Everyone has anecdotes about this, including Deputy McDonald. In our house, our son was tested 35 days ago and we still have not got the result. He is as healthy as anything, thank God, but everyone has those stories and the undermining of public confidence due to those delays is regrettable. Even though a variety of factors may be out of the control of health facilities, such as reagents, we should acknowledge that we were not able to deliver what we promised and we sure as hell have to start delivering what we promise now. In the next phase of managing this crisis, what Paul Reid and the deputy chief medical officer are saying is that the test really becomes critical when one starts to open up the economy, so that clusters can be identified and the people isolated quickly, then contact tracing can be done.

I turn now to how this State does in managing this. On testing, while we have problems going back six or seven weeks, the real test will be in the next six months to a year. Ireland is world leading in information technology and many medical health capabilities. We should be best in class and we should ensure our testing system is as fast as anywhere and our contact tracing system is absolutely rock solid and quick.

The sixth and last category the Taoiseach mentioned was economic welfare, and that is also the one we have to face and address now. I again commend the State and the Government. The initial response was quick, which is part of what we needed to do, in providing the pandemic unemployment payments and immediate supports for business. That is only the first phase of what we need to do, however. The unlocking of restrictions cannot come quickly enough, not just for the sense of public morale, but also because our economy is in a shocking state and we need to start lifting it. Anything we do must be commensurate with not allowing the virus to come back. That is a given. It is not one versus the other, but a question of whether we can do both.

We should target our measures at certain key issues. First, it is clear that young people are the ones that suffer disproportionately the most. The statistics I saw this week showed that the level of take-up of the pandemic unemployment payment among young people, aged 18 to 24, was twice that of any other age category. They are the ones who are probably out of work in greatest numbers and we need to focus on them. Second, I refer to small businesses. Taking the latest figures for the unemployment payments as an indicator of where this is hitting home, in the accommodation and food sector, where there are typically large numbers of small Irish businesses, the level of use of such payments because of the lockdown is seven times the level of lay offs in the industrial and public administrative sectors. I come from the small business sector and perhaps I have a particular interest in it. It is the heart of our economy, the strength of our community and a major employer. It is not just that, however; it is part of our culture. High street and family businesses mean a lot to people. It is only when a person is involved in one that he or she knows what it is like. It is everything for that person and there is often also a family history as well. We are in real danger of losing many of those small family businesses if we do not act quickly to try to help them recover.

How we do that is the real challenge. We are facing a difficult choice this weekend regarding this four or five-stage roll out. I hope we can start doing something this weekend, even if it is something very small. I have a friend being buried this morning at a funeral where the restrictions mean it is only possible to have ten people present. This lovely woman was from a big family. It is also only possible to be in the funeral home for 15 minutes. I think we can do a funeral with social distancing, perhaps not the big funerals of the past but with some slight easing of some of the restrictions. Another example would be allowing people to go for a walk. We can trust our people to do social distancing so that our older people are able to get out, exercise and get fresh air. As I mentioned last week as well, many of the small businesses I referred to work in tourism. I know some of what is planned from reading the newspapers yesterday. The talk is that we will be opening up in the late summer and it might then be possible to go on a holiday in Ireland. We should also look to the prospect of getting our people, particularly our young people, out walking, swimming, meeting carefully and helping our small businesses to recover. That too is part of the test we have as to how we manage this whole crisis.

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